Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Par­ents whose ap­pli­ca­tions for the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s 2026 school sup­plies and book grants have been ap­proved are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive the grants by Sep­tem­ber 21, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said yes­ter­day.

Dowlath con­firmed the date in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day in re­sponse to a query from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who raised con­cerns about par­ents who had ap­plied for the grants but had not yet re­ceived them de­spite the re­cent re­open­ing of the 2026/2027 school term.

Dowlath said that in 2024 the PNM gov­ern­ment’s school sup­plies and book grants were re­ceived by par­ents by Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024.

He al­so said in 2025, book grants were re­ceived by par­ents by Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025.

Dowlath added, “With re­spect to the 2026 school sup­plies and book grants, all ap­proved ap­pli­cants are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive their book grants by Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 21, 2026.”

Act­ing Speak­er Dr Aiy­na Ali did not al­low Gads­by-Dol­ly’s fol­low-up query on how many ap­proved ap­pli­cants had not yet re­ceived the grants.

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so queried Dowlath about a bat in­fes­ta­tion af­fect­ing St Hil­da’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

Dowlath said that while the school opened on Mon­day, the Min­istry had en­gaged the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) to con­duct a scope of works.

He said work would be­gin to­day and was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by to­mor­row, al­low­ing the school to re­open on Mon­day.

Op­po­si­tion PNM MP Stu­art Young’s query about who re­ceived the con­tract to ad­dress the bat in­fes­ta­tion was al­so not al­lowed by Ali.

Mean­while, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, re­spond­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les on the Gov­ern­ment’s plans to ad­vance the is­sue of repara­to­ry jus­tice, said the pol­i­cy to ad­vance the is­sue will be guid­ed by Cab­i­net “in due course.”

He al­so said Cab­i­net will ap­point a Na­tion­al Repa­ra­tions Com­mit­tee “in due course.”

Sobers cit­ed the mea­sures that have to be adopt­ed be­fore a de­ci­sion is tak­en.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, re­spond­ing to queries from PNM MP Hans Des Vi­gnes, said the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) has a func­tion­ing man­age­ment in place.

She said 37 po­si­tions were filled through fixed-term con­tracts, along with a num­ber of posts that had re­mained va­cant for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.